India Convicts Four of Murder in Delhi Gang-Rape Case

23-Year-Old Victim Was Attacked on a Bus in December

Four men have been found guilty of the rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in December in New Delhi. The WSJ's Paul Beckett tells Deborah Kan why there is still a long way to go for women to be safer in India.

NEW DELHI—An Indian court convicted four men Tuesday on charges they raped and murdered a 23-year-old student in December, a crime that horrified the nation—and the world—and cast doubt on whether social change was keeping pace with economic progress in the world's largest democracy.

The men, Mukesh Singh,Vinay Sharma,Pawan Gupta and Akshay Kumar Singh, all in their 20s, face a maximum punishment of death when they are sentenced. A lawyer for Mr. Gupta said the men "were tearful" as the verdict was read. All four had denied guilt.

The shocking brutality of the December attack—in which police said the victim was sexually assaulted with a metal bar in addition to being repeatedly raped while on board a bus—jolted India, touching off protest marches and sparking a reconsideration of long-held attitudes about women and their rights.

In the months following the assault, laws were rewritten to make voyeurism and stalking criminal offenses and to increase the penalties for rape. Police are adding more female officers and improving training. The number of reported rape cases is up sharply this year, as more victims are willing to come forward.

ENLARGE

Protesters in India staged a mock hanging scene on Tuesday in New Delhi to demand a death sentence for four men, all in their 20s, after a judge convicted them in the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving New Delhi bus last year.
Associated Press

But there are limits to the change. More conservative quarters of society are pushing back, blaming Western influence and the greater liberties many women enjoy in urban India for inciting violence against them. It is a battle playing out in homes, schools and politics.

Such attitudes are increasingly being challenged as India's traditional culture collides with modernity. A decade of rapid economic growth has swelled the ranks of India's middle class and helped drive a revolution in the lives of a small but growing number of women, especially those in the urban workforce.

Delhi Gang-Rape Verdict

Photos

A police vehicle carrying the four men convicted Tuesday of the gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus on December 16 entered a court complex in New Delhi. Adnan Abidi/Reuters

"There has been a very, very important evolution in our public discourse," said Vrinda Grover, a human-rights lawyer in New Delhi. "But it's not an easy cultural shift. It's not happening across the board in the country."

On Tuesday, Judge Yogesh Khanna declared in his verdict that "the facts make all the accused liable for the coldblooded murder of the defenseless" victim. He also wrote: "All these acts were done in a premeditated manner."

Lawyers and rights groups say the sexual assault and killing of a young woman in India are changing sexual-violence laws. The Wall Street Journal asks a legal expert whether the reforms are enough to protect women.

A.P. Singh, a lawyer for two of the defendants, said, "The court has given its verdict under political pressure. It is a political murder. We will appeal."

A sentencing hearing is set for Wednesday. Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty, something defense lawyers said they would oppose.

Outside the courthouse, members of 16 December Revolution, a group that takes its name from the date of the Delhi attack, demonstrated in black hoods and nooses, demanding the death penalty.

The 46-year-old mother of the woman assaulted in December, who was in court Tuesday, also called for their execution. "It's not anger," she said. "We're asking for the death sentence because we don't want anyone else's daughter to face what happened with our daughter."

In addition to the four men found guilty Tuesday, a fifth adult defendant in the case was found dead in his jail cell in March. Authorities say he committed suicide. His family alleges he was killed. His death is under investigation.

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A teenager tried separately by a juvenile court was sentenced last week to three years in a reformatory—the maximum punishment allowed under India's youthful offender laws—after a board found he participated in the attack. That ruling angered rights activists, who thought the sentence too lenient, and fueled calls for a revamp of the country's justice system.

During the gang-rape trial, India's traditional divisions have been on display. For example, a popular Hindu religious teacher who has been arrested by police on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage girl has seen thousands of supporters rally to his defense. One day backers protesting the guru's arrest organized a march that dwarfed a nearby demonstration against mistreatment of women. The teacher, who goes by the name Asaram, has denied wrongdoing and says he is the target of a conspiracy. He hasn't been formally charged.

After the December Delhi gang rape, Mr. Asaram told his supporters that if the victim had spent more time praying, she could have avoided the temptation to go the movies in a shopping mall with a male friend, as she did the night she was assaulted.

"Now girls are roaming in clubs at 11 p.m.," said Ashok Kumar Sharma, a 60-year-old Delhi tax official who had come to pray on a recent day at Mr. Asaram's religious center. Women "give men every chance," he said. He said women would be safer if they stuck to long-standing, conservative codes of behavior.

The comments echoed those made by the some of the men who participated in the December attack, according to the account provided to the court by the victim's male friend, who himself was beaten badly during the assault. He said that after he and the woman boarded the bus, the men began making rude remarks, asking what they were doing out together so late.

Even senior police officials have expressed conservative views about women's behavior. After a photographer was raped by a gang of men in Mumbai in August, the city's police commissioner, Satyapal Singh, said young people couldn't demand the right to date and kiss in public and expect women to be safe.

"There is so much liberalization of the society," Mr. Singh said. "There is a connection" between that and violence against women, he said.

Young women have become more visible in urban India's public spaces in recent years. They are claiming greater personal freedom to study, to work outside the home, even to love and marry someone of their own—rather than their parents'—choosing. On television, ads increasingly show young women expressing sexual interest in men.

One reason the Delhi gang rape provoked such an impassioned response was that it struck close to the heart of the new India. The victim was a student, she had been to a movie at an upscale mall. She was assaulted on a bus as it drove around some of the capital's better neighborhoods.

ENLARGE

A van carried the four men to court before they were convicted Tuesday.
Manish Swarup/Associated Press

"There are certain historical moments when people feel this is the last straw," said Kalpana Viswanath, a researcher with Delhi-based women's rights group Jagori. "There's this whole thing of targeting women who are in some sense claiming public space."

One of the clearest changes is in the willingness of women to confront their attackers and take legal action against them—a turnabout from days when the stigma of rape was so severe, victims and their families preferred to stay silent.

Delhi police registered 1,036 complaints of rape through Aug. 15 this year, more than double the number of cases in the same period in 2012. Police said they also received 2,267 complaints of molestation through Aug. 15, nearly six times the 381 reported in the same period last year.

"That rise in reporting has happened because more and more women are seeing this as their right," said Ms. Grover, the human-rights lawyer. "Once you start having a notion of your own self-worth, your personhood, then anybody violating that, you see that as wrong. You are actually making a cultural shift here."

A major disappointment for activists was Parliament's unwillingness to allow the prosecution of husbands accused of rape by their wives. Lawmakers said such a law would undermine marriage in India.

"There is still the idea thatwe are interfering with the family, that it's far too private and sensitive and that it shouldn't be scrutinized by the state," said Jacqueline Bhabha, a Harvard professor working with the Gender Violence Project, a study program set up after the rape in Delhi.

Many parts of the country remain beyond the effective reach of the law, and cases are resolved by negotiations among villagers.

Earlier this month, police in the western state of Rajasthan said they arrested a 44-year-old man on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 5-year-old girl. Police official Bhanwari Lal Meena said that before coming to the authorities, the two families had been trying to settle the issue by discussing a possible marriage between the girl and the suspect's 8-year-old son.

In recent months, some young women in cities say they have changed their behavior. Amrita Thukral, a 23-year-old business student in a Delhi suburb, said the December rape was a wake-up call. "You need to be careful about the time that you're going out," said Ms. Thukral, who was meeting friends for dinner at the mall where the Delhi rape victim and her male friend watched a movie the night they were attacked.

Like others in India, the parents of the rape victim don't agree about how much freedom a young woman can safely have. Her father said women should study and pursue jobs. But, he says, he would advise other parents to keep their daughters at home after dark, he said, adding, "There is a line."

The victim's mother disagreed. "People always blame the woman. They say, `She wasn't dressed properly.' They say, `Why was she out so late?' Why are all the rules for girls?" she asked. "It's not OK to place such restrictions on girls."

Kavita Krishnan, a leader of the All India Progressive Women's Association, a left-leaning women's rights group, compared the struggles of young Indian women to those of long-discriminated-against lower caste groups, which have demanded the right to break out of narrow culturally defined roles.

"Why can't women have the right to be on the same streets, to be in the same workplaces, to be in the same homes? Why can't we have the right to be safe in the same places?" Ms. Krishnan asked. "The idea that as a woman you should not take risks, means basically your freedom is restricted."

—Saurabh Chaturvedi and Niharika Mandhana contributed to this article.

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